


Glades of Summer, Tears of Autumn

by Sleepless_Malice



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Doriath, Gen, Gift Fic, Grief/Mourning, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Tolkien Secret Santa 2017, Worldbuilding, edit included, female characters being awesome, for the second part:, post-Thingol's death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-12 15:12:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12962151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sleepless_Malice/pseuds/Sleepless_Malice
Summary: ....and she [Melian] vanished out of Middle-earth, and passed to the land of the Valar beyond the western sea, to muse upon her sorrows in the gardens of Lórien, whence she came, and this tale speaks of her no more. (The Silmarillion)The Story of Melian the Maia, from Doriath to a time beyond legend.Written for Tolkien Secret Santa 2017, for StarSpray.





	Glades of Summer, Tears of Autumn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StarSpray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarSpray/gifts).



**Glades of Summer, Tears of Autumn**

*****

 

 

*

Spring had come early this year, chasing away the icy gusts of winter that had confined many of Menegroth’s inhabitants to the glittering caves with its fires, seeking warmth and comfort above all else. Not so Lúthien, the king’s daughter. Deep snow and freezing winds had never been an obstacle to Doriath’s princess who loved best to wander beneath the stars and pale moonlight, no matter the season. Amidst knee-deep snow she danced, snowflakes swirling about her body as if they did not dare to touch her in her beauty. All around her the world was silent as if holding its breath to listen to her song. She loved each season and so gladly she watched nature awaken once more, slowly at first but growing bolder each day.

 

*

The moon rose and fell and before long, spring gave way to summer.

Over the years it had become tradition between Lúthien and her mother, the goddess who walked among the Children of Illuvatar that they would venture toward their favorite glade at midsummer. The glade was far from Menegroth’s halls but still within the Girdle. They began this tradition when Luthien first learned to speak; the first years they would eat fresh fruit in the filtered sunshine and play Lúthien’s favorite games with Melian telling her all about the land beyond the sea Lúthien had never seen.. They would sing together, too, and Melian taught her beloved child the sacred songs she had sung under the cypresses in the Gardens of Lórien, powerful and spell-binding.

Much later their conversions ventured toward more delicate matters – no less exciting or intriguing to Lúthien, and instead of eating fruit they would drink sparkling strawberry cider together until the sun disappeared behind the impressive trees. Usually laughter filled the air around them, joining the song of chirping birds and often woodland animals, does and rabbits, sometimes foxes, kept them company. They met often in the privacy of Melian’s chambers, yet midsummer was sacred to both of them and many a little secret was revealed that day.

 

*

Now, with her daughter a woman fully grown, Melian spoke plainly of matters that troubled her heart. She did not keep important secrets from her husband or her daughter, yet she deemed it unwise to trouble their hearts with some of her mind's vague glimpses. Her powers had not forsaken her the day she had wed Elu, as she had thought they perhaps might, nor had the nightingales stopped bringing her the things they saw and heard.

Of late Melian’s dreams had grown dark and darker still, and she often found herself wandering Menegroth’s golden hallways when everyone was asleep. The foreboding voices increased in intensity, as if doom knocked at Menegroth's great gate. She said nothing to Elu about her nightly wanderings, although her husband must have noticed her absence every time he woke alone. She desired certainty before she alarmed him, a glimpse into the future that so far was veiled to her eyes.

That day Melian’s sorrow was not lost on Lúthien. “You seem worried,” her daughter said the moment Melian stepped into the glade on bare feet, with a flock of nightingales following in her wake.

The jewelry around Melian’s ankles chimed as she sat down beside Lúthien, taking the crystal glass she offered her. “I am, gravely so,” she replied, although she had intended to keep their conversation more pleasant, at least for a while.

Lúthien tilted her head but said nothing. She didn’t have to. There was no use lying to her, as Luthien could also decipher even the subtlest emotions, a trait she clearly had not inherited from her father. A great leader Thingol might be; a warrior of old, but the art of subtle diplomacy was entirely lost on him.

“War will soon be upon us,” said Melian, sighing, “it will be swift and ferocious; a war that will take everything from me, one way or another.”

“These lands are protected,” Lúthien said defiantly. Her daughter knew the world was a dangerous place, cold and unwelcoming compared to Aman from whence Melian had come so long ago.

Affirmation from Melian came with a nod. “They indeed are against evil of a lesser sort, against those spirits that can hardly live on their own, let alone think. Yet you, my daughter, know as well as I do that other evils have risen in the shadows with powers far greater than my own. With all my strength and experience I cannot protect the realm against them.”

“I shall never leave you, mother.”

Melian seldom struggled to choose her words. “Do not say what you do not know to be true. Your life is not meant to be spent in Menegroth’s glittering caves, sitting idly by the fire with a needle in your hand no matter that your father deems this fitting for your station. This is not your life, fairest child of all, and springs to life in you as it does in me. Idleness, no matter how sweet and charming, is not meant for us. I was blessed with the life I lived in Lórien’s gardens – protected, adorned, loved, yet no intellectual conversation nor admiration could ever quench my thirst for lands that weren’t my own. In the beauty of Aman I felt caged. It was a golden cage, but a cage nonetheless. Valmar’s bells were silent when at the mingling I sang and all conversations ceased and over the course of time I have mastered my song to perfection, yet despite all the adoration I felt incomplete.”

Melian’s sigh disrupted the pause. She lifted her hand the moment Lúthien opened her mouth to speak. “Don’t deny it, my child. You know that you have inherited the gift of enchantment from me, and although you may not take advantage of it yet, the power of spell-binding song is alive within you.”

Melian went on. “In time I would not be caged any longer and refused all summons from my superiors. I ventured often beyond the sea toward the Outer Lands, and there I sang and danced in the awakening forests beneath the starlit sky. A strange peace always filled me, a calmness I never knew in my golden cage. Upon my return I asked my kindred if any of them had ever experienced such a strange peace. They never had. So I returned to the twilit forests whenever my duty allowed it, and each time the feeling of being at peace, being _home_ grew in its intensity, so that my journeys took me further into the woods than I ever ventured before.” For the first time in a while Melian smiled. “You know what happened then, in the twilight of Nan Elmoth.”

“Of course,” said Lúthien, gently stroking the doe that had come to lay by her side gently. Often her daughter was seen wandering through the moonlit forest with a flock of deer and rabbits following in her wake. “So you have never regretted your choice?”

Melian’s answer came swiftly. “Not once. A day may come in which I will regret much, but never the love I harbor for you and your father. I know that he is sometimes strange, and I understand why sometimes you keep your little secrets to yourself in his company.”

Lúthien’s eyes filled in wonder, then with shock. “So you know?”

Melian raised the crystal glass to her lips and took a sip before she spoke. “I knew the moment you first met the mortal in the woods of Doriath. An encounter not so different than my own with Elu so long ago, perhaps.” The memory of how she had first laid eyes upon the silver-haired Elda with those astonishing green eyes never failed to make her heart flutter. Although it was said that love grows over time, their love could never be greater than it was on the day they first met.

Lúthien met Melian’s eyes, this time weighing her words carefully. “And you never said a word to father?”

Melian did not keep secrets about her own thoughts and dreams from her husband. Any other secret was safe with her, especially her daughter’s. “My place is not to lay your secrets bare, not before Elu nor any other. I never have, nor will I ever in the future, not even about less-important matters. But he is a mortal, and we both know what your father's reaction will be,” said Melian, wishing it was not so. “Therefore I never counseled you to speak to your father about your nightly meetings beneath the stars; or of the dances you taught him. Sometimes, these are fleeting affairs.”

“Not so with Beren,” Lúthien protested-

So Beren was the mortal’s name, thought Melian. “I suspected as much, and that is why I counsel you now: you cannot keep your nightly journeys a secret forever. The man is not the only one who has taken an interest in you, and you know that well. Sooner or later the minstrel shall follow you down the narrow path and jealousy will lead to fury. Silence never was a singer’s virtue and before your father he will sing with shameless exaggeration.”

“Mother – “ her voice abandoned her as tears filled her eyes.

Gently, Melian wrapped her arms around her crying daughter. “If his interests are as sincere as yours, his journey must lead him to Menegroth’s court where he must bid your father for your hand,” she said, knowing well that Thingol was never swayed by petty words. Only deeds mattered. Melian knew that his appointed task would not be easily fulfilled.

“He never will –“ Her sobs cut off her words.

Before her inner eye, Melian saw rage burning across her husband’s features the moment Beren made his proposition and the icy stare he would give the man, but worse was the mocking voice that began to speak in her head. Thingol harbored no love for the Secondborn and the sincerest request and greatest love was for nothing when it came to Elu and his beloved child.

Never before, and never after wished Melian with such ferocity to tell her daughter that Elu would react in a different manner. “One day perhaps he might.”

A kiss upon Lúthien’s brow was little comfort, but it was all Melian could give – she would not spark false hopes within her daughter’s heart.  

 

*

After a fortnight the bearded man indeed appeared before Thingol’s court in Menegroth, clad in simple attire with even simpler words to speak – though most often it was Lúthien who told her father about the nightly dances in the forest with such heartbreaking innocence that Melian was close to tears. Encouraged by the maiden’s words, at last Beren spoke freely of his desire to wed the king’s daughter. Just as Melian had predicted, the spectacle began to unfold.

Wild rage replaced the mirth that had danced upon Elu's face. The mocking words were worse than even Melian had thought they would be, but worst of all was the task appointed to the mortal man: to snatch one of the accursed stones from Melkor’s crown, a task no Elda or Ainu ever dared to try.

 _Alas!_ Why not directly send the man into his grave by bow and arrow, a death far less cruel than being subject to Melkor’s vile deeds.

Melian saved her words. She would not openly confront the king with all the court listening. Wild rage replaced the mirth that had danced upon Elu's face, she came to him. The softness of her voice he so much loved turned to ice. Arguments were rare in Menegroth’s halls as the respect between Melian and Thingol ran too deep. Today was different though, as her daughter’s happiness mattered most to Melian. Rage, easily matching Elu’s earlier fury, blossomed upon her face as she confronted Thingol with the impossible task he had appointed to Beren. He would listen, but never relent. It was difficult for Melian to keep her fury and her powers at bay in the face of such stubbornness.

Melian did not share her husband's bed that night, nor did she for many nights to come.

The morning after, Beren rode forth in hope to fulfil the quest he’d been given. Lúthien, understanding well that she might never see her beloved again, wept for many days until tears would no longer come. There was little comfort Melian could offer her child.

Melian did not speak to Thingol for many days. Where once laughter and merriment had filled the court of Thingol and Melian the Maia, a strange chill danced through Menegroth’s glittering halls, reflecting its queen’s state of mind. She craved comfort, his touch against the small of her back and his strong fingers twining with her own, yet no matter how desperate she became, Melian would not relent for her daughter’s sake.

Beyond hope Lúthien prayed and sang in all her misery until one night she came to her mother in despair.

“A nightmare has plagued me,” said Lúthien with trembling voice. “About Beren caught in the enemy’s claws, sharp teeth and furs.”

It was then that Melian realized that the gift of foresight had passed to Lúthien stronger than she had thought it would.

Desperation rang in Lúthien’s voice. “Mother? How does Beren fare?”

Melian had dreaded the question. “Not well,” she said, and then she kept true to her promise that no secrets would ever come between them. “He is alive, my child, but I cannot say for how long. The enemy has enslaved your most beloved.”

Silence reigned as sparks of thought began to form in Lúthien’s mind, hardly concealed to Melian’s sharp eyes. Soon the sparks grew and wove a foolish, but final plan. Lúthien’s mind was set. “I shall go as no other ever will to save my beloved.”

The pain in Melian’s heart almost choked her. “This is folly, my dearest child. How could you ever stand against evil’s treachery? I shall plead with your father to send warriors to free your beloved from the claws of evil.”

The love between Thingol and Melian persisted, though their relationship had grown cold of late. The morning after Melian went to her husband to plead for her daughter’s helpless cause. It was all in vain. Elu would not send warriors to support such folly.

 

*

Throughout many nights in which Lúthien, confined to solitude and loneliness, sang while weaving the delicate fabric, Melian had sensed her daughter’s true motives. The same blood ran through their veins, the same determination was alive in every fiber of their being – and perhaps the same folly, too. Melian said nothing to Elu.

The night Lúthien departed the Halls of Menegroth, dust and ashes rained from the bleak sky and no words in the tongues of elves or men were made to describe the grief of Melian the Maia. Not that day or any day after. The nightingales fell silent and Melian’s song was heard no more in the vast expanses of the halls and Menegroth grew cold in the emotional absence of her queen. All of Doriath mourned the princess’s loss, the king included. Dark circles began to grow around Elu’s once-keen eyes, and though at court his mask of strength never shattered, Melian knew how sorrow gnawed at him. Elu became a shadow of his former self, withering just like the autumnal trees did with skin grey as stone.

At last Melian took pity.

Their daughter’s flight was her fault as much as his, and in the privacy of his chambers, she told him so. That night she saw it all – despair, self-hatred,and all the world that was. Without thinking twice, she wrapped her arms around his shaking form so that he could cry at her shoulder until tears would come no more. An apology teetered on the tip of Elu’s tongue, as close to an apology Elu would ever allow to slip. Equal grief and loss for their beloved child united them again, and love blossomed between them ever after.

Many horrors came and went, with Melian counseling her king as best as she could. Happiness came to the Halls of Menegroth, too, in the form of a wedding and a child shortly after, yet amidst such happiness dark shadows arose.

As she had predicted many years ago in the secluded glade, war descended upon Menegroth. At the end of all the vile deeds, Melian was alone.

 

*

A day after Thingol’s death, Melian vanished out of Middle-Earth. She was never seen dancing below the leaf-canopies again.

She, the only Ainu who had ever learned how to love one outside of her own kind, who had learned how to drink and laugh in the company of First and Secondborn alike, and she, who had given birth to a child who had chosen mortality over immortality could not remain in the strange world she had seen through Elu’s eyes.

In the wake of her flight, the powers that had protected the forest left, and it was said that even the birdsong diminished..She returned to the gardens of Lorien in all her sorrows, to the place where she had once imagined the outside world, which in her grief had entirely lost its appeal.

For many summers Melian sat beneath the weeping willow by the little pond, contemplating her losses in silence. She would not speak to anyone who approached her, so that in the end even Irmo ceased to approach her. She had even shut out the ways that the Ainur conversed without words. Lórien’s legendary beauty, meandering streams and ponds with water lilies growing upon the turquoise surface, was lost to her in all her agony – a husband to mourn, a daughter lost to the curse of mortality, never to be embraced again.

A winter passed and summer came, and then the seasons turned again, yet Melian still dwelt upon her sorrows.

Only after a hundred years of grief and silence the clouds began to lift from her hollow eyes and the nightingales resumed flying about her. Their song and the memory of those she loved chased the mists away and long-forgotten powers grew within her, fueled by a grief greater than any of the Ainur had ever named his own.

A fire she had long thought dead began to burn in her veins. “Pleasant as it may be, to dwell in the shadows of the cypresses is not my fate,” she said one night to the God of Dreams under a starlit sky, “and although I shall never see my beloved daughter again, the possibility to reunite with my husband exists. Do not expect my return any time soon – or perhaps ever. I shall go to your brother’s halls to demand Elu’s release from the wretched place.”

Knowing that Melian would not heed any advice, Irmo gave her a courteous nod but remained silent otherwise.

Clad in the same flowing robes that Melian had worn the day she had met Elu beneath the shady trees in Nan Elmoth, she left Lórien’s sanctuary and set forth to the Halls of Mandos. Her journey led her past Formenos where all evil had begun so many eons past when the accursed jewels had fallen into Melkor’s vile hands. Melian didn’t linger. What had come to pass could never be undone, nor all the misery that had come in its wake. Green plains gave way to hills, dull and grey, with mist wafting about their little peaks. A wasted landscape, bleak and lifeless – perfectly befitting its purpose.

She dreaded to venture further, rather floating than walking. Any other might have been swayed by such hostile scenery, but not Melian.

She knocked on Namo's door with such ferocity that all souls deep asleep must have woken the hour she sought entrance.

Spirits of her kind opened the heavy door, whispering that no living shall ever enter the realm of the dead.

Melian laughed in defiance. “Am I not of your kind?” she asked, and as the faceless spirits merely shrugged, she added, “Bring me to the keeper of these halls as you seem unwilling to converse with me.”

She would not be denied so easily, yet the keeper of these halls deliberately ignored her. Perhaps she should have gone to the House of Vairë, just as Míriel had done to demand entrance, but she wasn’t a broideress, let alone a handmaid – she would only serve one.

Days waxed and waned and day after day Melian knocked at the door so that the earth below her shook until at last she was bid to enter the gloomy twilight of the halls when the moon stood high upon the sky. Silent spirits without eyes led her through hallways made entirely from onyx. She knew they collected the souls of the fallen which followed Mandos’ call, those who had accompanied her beloved Elu on his last journey.

Burning candles guided her through the halls’ endless labyrinth. She thought they were as deserted and hostile as only Melkor's halls of thralldom could be, before the black stone gave way to tapestried walls. There she saw the beginning of days, the flight of the Noldor, and their atrocities raising sword against kin until she reached her own story. Vairë's embroidery spoke of twilit forests, love at first sight, and the child that came from it. For the first time, Melian smiled at the memory. Swiftly, the little girl was a woman grown, and although Melian had seen her daughter’s fate in painfully vivid dreams, she read the story of Lúthien’s life, spellbound. She read of her imprisonment by Fëanáro's wretched sons. She read of Beren's love and their forlorn quest until the light withered from her face like autumnal trees and passed to Dior. Had she truly spent so many years in silent contemplation that Lúthien was dead?

I must not linger, Melian told herself. It was hard not to.

She forced herself onward. The moment the hallway of tapestries gave way to a domed hall, a chill began to seep through her thin garment. It was a strange black with intermittent violet hues springing to life.

This must be where Lúthien had fallen to her knees to sway the one who was said to never to move. Long had Melian served under Vána and Estë who had given her all the freedom she had ever sought, and often she had sat with Nienna by the never-freezing pond with the nightingales flying about her. She had held conversation with Varda and Manwë themselves, and often with the keeper of the gardens she had dwelled in, but never had she spoken to the Valar’s Judge. In fact she had never laid her eyes upon him as she did now, watching the white flames in his eyes and black hair cascading over his shoulders. The Fëanturian brothers were like day and night, like silver moonlight versus the pitch-black darkness, one forgiving and understanding whilst the other was not.  

Melian felt her feet sway in strange nervousness as she stepped closer before the Vala’s throne, a thousand candles burning about him.

His voice wasn’t unpleasant. “You – “  

Patience was never Melian’s virtue. “I have come to reclaim what rightfully is mine,” she said, lifting her hand to prevent him from speaking. She knew that she wandered into dangerous territory. But what was there to lose for her, who had lost everything?

“What once was rightfully yours - and now rightfully is mine,” said Námo, gaze cast down on her quite.

She went on, eyes alight with burning anger. “Do not speak to me of compassion as you know nothing of the grief I endure with every breath I take, condemned to this world until the end of days. My greatest grief is for the loss of my own child, who wanders realms that even you do not know. My murdered husband awaits his judgment in your halls. It is in your power to release him.”

Námo’s eyes moved past her. “Indeed you are correct that my losses are incomparable to your own,” the Judge said to her, voice even. He pressed each finger together, thumb to thumb, index to index and began yet again. “Nevertheless, I have mourned many losses, and I shall more mourn more before the end of days has come. I am no stranger to grief.” An idle gesture with his jeweled hand directed her eyes toward a thousand little caverns in the walls behind her. Dread filled her mind. “Each one whispers. Each one repents for their sins and atrocities of which many had come to pass. Each soul contemplates their chosen fate in one way or another in murmurs that never cease.”

His indifferent behavior was unnerving. “And yet you sit here! Idle. Unmoved.” Melian clenched her hands into fists to prevent another outburst.

The Judge merely shrugged his shoulders, leaning back into his throne. “I must not be swayed.”

A lie, both knew it well. Once before Námo had been swayed by prayers, by her daughter’s song, which Melian had taught Lúthien amidst lush grass and flowers when she was only a child.

Melian lashed out, blind with fury. “Deny me and I shall wait before your doors, wailing my losses until you rediscover what pity is, the gift Eru has appointed to us all!”

“So be it.”

 

*

Melian never returned to the sanctuary of Lórien’s gardens.

Just as she said, she remained in the hostile lands around the Halls of Mandos. And there she sat, mourning and wailing, whether rain or snow fell down on her, until even the last nightingale sought refuge in more favorable places. Sometimes, her spirit tried to surpass the onyx walls to reach her husband, caught in the wretched palace like a bird in the cage. She never succeeded. Melian knew with all her heart that Elu would have answered her.

Summers came and went, and still Melian sat beneath the autumn leaves until in forlorn hope she summoned all her powers and sang like she had sung never before. For a moment the world stood still. Even the roaring sea was silent as her lament echoed through the air, stretching and coiling so that her voice was even heard high upon Taniquetil. She wove all her grief and sorrow into the song, all the emotions she had experienced in her life that no other Ainur should ever come know. She sang of love and compassion, of joy and agony. Her voice and song, far more powerful than Lúthien’s own, at last moved the Valar’s Doomsman to pity. He appeared in all his might before her, yet sternness had given way to compassion on his face as he beckoned to her a second time.

Finally he answered her. “The living are denied access to the realm of death. Forsake your life. Forsake your claims and titles and all else that has ever been dear to him.”

She already had, long ago. “I shall.” She would have knelt if he bade her to, just as her daughter had done by free will to reclaim the life of the one she so dearly loved.  

“Yet so must he,” the Judge said, and at first Melian did not understand the implication, so Námo went on. “The music of the Ainur speaks of a different fate for Elwë, once reborn, than being reunited with his mourning wife. Once again he shall sit among his friends of old, with whom so much had shared ere the beginning of days. These lands will not be safe forever. They shall become kings again.”

Melian’s spirits sank for a moment before she gathered all her strength. “You did not summon me to tell me that.”

Námo nodded. “Your conclusion is correct. The Valar were moved by your music and all its misery. Live a peaceful life far away on a secluded island, together but otherwise alone until the final summons will shake the earth. He must heed the call, yet you, Melian, are confined to the island until the world is remade.”

Melian barely recognized the lifeless spirit that came forth. It hardly resembled her beloved husband in life. “Is it truly you?” he said to her as if in a dream, an astonished murmur,  as it had been when they first met beneath the magnificent trees, and he reached out to her.

“Elu,” she said, cupping his bony face and as she did,her eyes welled up with tears. While he was alive, she would have known her husband’s decision even before asking. That was her fate. Under the Judge’s stern gaze she repeated Námo’s words to Thingol, trying to not let any emotion show through. More than once, she almost failed, overcome by fear.

“The choice is yours,” Melian said at the end, taking a step backwards. She would not infiltrate Elu’s mind and corrupt his choice.

A brief silence, like an indrawn breath, and the world stood still for Melian as she awaited her husband’s reply. “All my life I have fought and tried to rule,” Thingol then said, looking at her with hollow eyes. “I am weary, Melian, weary as I’ve never been before, worn out by my contemplation.”

Slowly, strength returned to Thingol’s voice, until he sounded as regal as ever. “No more! I forsake the glory and my friends of old. I forsake the prospect to rise and be king again. I choose only you, my queen.”

*

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much, [angrymermaids/Nibeneth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angrymermaids/pseuds/Nibeneth) for your amazing beta work


End file.
